The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Friday criticised the Tamil Nadu Director General of Police (DGP) K. Ramanujam for refuting a statement made by the party, and claiming that Hindu leaders were not attacked in the state.
Speaking to the media here, BJP leader Prakash Javadekar said: "We condemn his statement. He should not have made the statement when a Special Investigation Division (SID) is investigating the case."
A three-member national BJP team consisting of Javadekar, parliament member Ananth Kumar, and spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman visited Salem, around 340 km from here, to study the situation in Tamil Nadu after the recent murder of V. Ramesh, the party's state general secretary.
According to Javadekar, there is a pattern in the killings of Hindu leaders in the state, involving fundamentalist forces. He sought a detailed and expeditious probe into the attacks on Hindu leaders.
Tamil Nadu's police chief Friday listed out different cases of such attacks, and claimed that leaders of the BJP and other Hindu organisations were sometimes attacked because of "personal motives".
"In some cases, the accused belonged to the same religion as the victim. Statements seeking to create an impression that a large number of targeted attacks have gone unchecked or undetected or that the police have failed to take action are misleading and contrary to the truth," he said.
He said the police have taken proper steps and arrested the accused in cases of assault on leaders of Hindu organisations and necessary police protection has been provided to persons and officers considered to be facing threats.